PayPal, purportedly the leader in sending and receiving money online, is no longer content with just being a payment processing service. Their new service, PayPal Money Pool, sets the company sights on crowdfunding services such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. The interesting thing is, PayPal Money Pool, while working similarly, is almost completely different from those crowd funding options.
First, much like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, PayPal Money Pool will let users set a goal and PayPal will handle getting the donations to the user (from other PayPal accounts or processing approved payment options like credit cards).
When setting up PayPal Money Pool users can decide to keep contributors identities private or publicly displayed, set goals, and here is where PayPal’s offering will differ the most – the user that created the Money Pool can extend the deadline if the funding goal is not met. Please keep in mind, contributors that wish to remain anonymous can choose to do so when making their contribution – this will override the choice made by the Money Pool creator.
That option to extend the deadline is a game changer for a lot of potential projects I could see coming over to PayPal’s Money Pool option. I cannot tell you how many, cool and interesting, Kickstarter projects I have seen that have failed by a few hundred bucks. Most of these went on to get funding via other means (often from PayPal donations) and have been able to complete their projects. With PayPal Money Pool, rather than attempting to reconnect with all those backers a second time, Money Pool users can simply extend the deadline if their goal appears to be attainable.
Another option that seems to be a game changer is the product or services being offered do not have to be created/commissioned by the creator of the project. This will be interesting to see how PayPal Money Pool develops.
Will you use PayPal Money Pool for your next project or will you stick with Kickstarter or IndieGoGo? I plan on offering something using PayPal Money Pool just to see how it goes. I will be back with the results later.
Source: PayPal